Learning the Lingo of the Locals

Naturally getting around Madagascar just like any foreign country can be helped by learning a bit about the local language. Madagascar has two official languages; French and Malagasy. Malagasy is the most popular everyday language spoken across the country, whilst French is more often reserved for business and administrative purposes. As a visitor, French will help you when in the city and in larger hotels and tourist destinations however if you intend to visit more rural locations off the beaten track then you will need to grasp a little Malagasy as well.

Malagasy is spoken by approximately 18 million people in Madagascar. The language largely originates from Indonesia and most closely resembles Ma’anyan, a Malayo-Polynesian language spoken in the Barito Valley of Southern Borneo. Consistent with historical evidence detailing patterns of early settlers from South East Asia and Africa, 93% of its rudimentary vocabulary is suggested to be derived from Polynesian influence with the rest being of African descent. Language holds significance in the transmission of information between people and between stages within history. In Madagascar, Malagasy was only transcribed in to a written form relatively recently by Welsh missionaries at the beginning of the 19^th century. Consequently, the Malagasy people have had to rely on oral transmission in order to facilitate the transfer of cultural and social practices between generations. This reliance upon oral history and communication is still of importance today as even with the development of a written form of the language, these different forms of the language do not bear a great resemblance to one another. For example, the last syllable of word and unstressed syllables in the middle of words are commonly dropped when spoken which can mean it can be a difficult language to follow (e.g. the capital city of Antananarivo is pronounced "Tananarive" but usually shortened to "Tana.").

The Malagasy alphabet has 21 letters that are also present in the alphabet we use here in the UK, but excludes the letters C, Q, U, W and X. Subsequently, ‘Madagascar’ is essentially not a Malagasy word – since C is omitted from the Malagasy alphabet. The actual Malagasy term for their country is ‘Madagasikara’ and confusion over the country’s name has been traced back to the European explorer Marco Polo who is reported to have named the island without actually visiting it. It is thought that he confused the island with the Somali town of Mogodishu and as a consequence successively corrupted the name to its present form.

Perhaps of the greatest interest regarding the language of Malagasy is the mystery that surrounds the widespread range of Malagasy and its consistent use across the island.  Despite Madagascar’s unique location and its sheer variety of ecological landscapes, the reach of Malagasy has not been inhibited leading to its strong establishment as the prevailing of language across the country, much to the bafflement of linguists. Stark contrasts in ecosystems such as forests, mountains, deserts or rivers commonly act as physical barriers to the dissipation of language in other areas. Consequently, the prevalence of Malagasy is somewhat of a surprise to experts considering the size and ethnic diversity of Madagascar. Especially when considering comparable places such as Madagascar’s nearest neighbour Africa, which has over 1500 languages and Papua New Guinea which is only a third of the size of the island and has over 700 different languages.

Why not have ago at learning a few phrases from the info below? A few phrases are presented below complete with English and an International Phonetic language translation to help you along.

English	Malagasy	IPA
English	Anglisy	ãŋɡliʂ
Yes	Eny	ˈʲenj
No	Tsia, Tsy	tsi, tsʲ
Hello! How are You?	Manao ahoana!	manaˈʷonə̥, manaˈonə̥
Hello! (rural areas)	Salama!	saˈlamə̥
I'm fine, thank you.	Tsara fa misaotra.	ˈtsarə̥ fa mʲˈsoːtʂə̥
Goodbye!	Veloma!	veˈlumə̥
Please	Azafady	azaˈfadʲ
Thank you	Misaotra	mʲˈsoːtʂa
You're welcome	Tsisy fisaorana.	tsʲ ˈmisʲ fʲˈsoːranə̥

You may also find this video useful with hearing some basic phrases in actions as well as picking up a few tips about Malagasy culture.

Enjoy!